I first told this story to my small daughter long ago... much to my amazement, here it still is 50 years later

As children’s classic The Tiger Who Came to Tea celebrates its 50th anniversary, author and illustrator Judith Kerr, 94, tells how work keeps her young

For the few who aren’t familiar my life,” Judith continues, “only in My father lost his language as a with The Tiger Who Came To Tea, the sense that it was my first book writer and could never keep the it’s the story of a little girl called published and I was encouraged to family as he would have wished to Sophie and her extraordinary do more.” support us all. teatime guest who scoffs all the She was recently joined for a 50th “It was very hard on them both, food in the house. It was inspired anniversary celebration at the but they were very positive. And by a bedtime story she created for Storystock Festival in south both my brother and I have always her daughter Tacy, after they’d London by actor Benedict agreed that the childhood we had been to the zoo together and seen Cumberbatch, who narrated the in Switzerland, France and here the tigers. story to visitors, and told her he was infinitely better than it would

“I first told this story to my small reads The Tiger Who Came To Tea have been if Hitler had never daughter long ago. She was rather to his two sons. happened and we’d stayed in critical of my other stories but used “I think the request (to attend the Berlin.” to say, ‘Talk the tiger!’ So, when she event) must have come from him,” Judith’s husband died in 2006, and her brother were both at she muses. “You can’t really ask and she admits work has helped school and I had more time, I Benedict Cumberbatch, ‘Would her cope on her own. thought I would make it into a you like to read The Tiger Who “You have to become a slightly picture book – and much to my Came To Tea’? I mean, he’s got different person. I still miss him. I amazement, here it still is 50 years better things to do. He’s absolutely miss his advice, because as a writer later.” charming, clever and nice. he always had very good ideas. We

Judith is one of the few successful “As I told him, it’s the only time were married for 52 years and were authors who also illustrates her I’ve ever been able to impress my together for 54. books and has always loved children.” “Of course, I do get lonely but I’m drawing, creating her cats from her Humour aside, Judith’s fate could all right if I’m working because that own pets over the years. have been much bleaker had she occupies me.”

She had been working as a BBC not fled Nazi Germany in 1933. Judith is working on a book for scriptwriter when she met her Born in Berlin, she came to eight-to-nine-year-olds, while husband – the late writer Thomas England with her family after another picture book is coming out Nigel Kneale, who wrote the sci-fi escaping the Nazis as a young girl. in the autumn. series Quatermass – and once she’d Her father, Alfred, a Jewish “Going for walks has always had two children, Matthew and theatre critic and satirical writer, helped me to think,” says Judith. Tacy, she wanted to look after them had mocked and reviled Hitler and “Walking is very good physically rather than return to the BBC. They the rising Nazi Party and became a for the hip, it’s cheering, and I love moved into a three-storey terraced marked man. In 1933, he fled to looking at things because if you house in Barnes, south-west Zurich, followed soon after by his draw you look at things all the time. London, in 1962 – where she still wife Julia and two children, And I think about the next bit of lives. There, in the top-floor study, Michael and Judith. work.” she created the tiger, Mog, and her “I was nearly 10 when we left. other characters in her books. What I didn’t know at the time is

“I’m not a writer. I draw, I went to just how hard it was for my parents. art school, and that’s what I really Once we came to England, I was a care about. The book didn’t change bit older, it became more visible.